Bad Dads Film Review

The crew kicks off Pocket Week with *God's Pocket* and explores whether the film's rough-edged, hyper-local setting works as character drama or just stays grim for grim's sake.
What We Covered
- Whether this was truly one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's final performances/releases
- John Slattery directing, plus the Mad Men crossover cast links
- The opening funeral framing and backfill structure
- Mickey's terrible decision-making spiral (including spending funeral money on a horse)
- The film's violence, cynicism, and lack of clear "good" characters
- Tone issues: bleak drama mixed with moments that feel unintentionally funny
- Community themes: loyalty, outsider distrust, and "closed" neighborhood culture
- Final verdict: moderate recommend
Final Verdict
Moderate recommend — worth watching for Hoffman and atmosphere, but patchy overall.
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Bad Dads

This week, the Dads head into the Australian Outback to review Nicolas Roeg's mesmerizing and dreamlike 1971 survival drama, Walkabout.
Dan kicks things off by admitting he completely confused this movie with A Far Off Place, spending the first hour waiting for a dog that was never going to appear. Once the confusion settles, Sidey, Dan, Reegs, and Cris dive deep into this visual masterpiece starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, and the legendary David Gulpilil.
In this episode:
- Dan's Kalahari Desert mix-up
- The culture clash: modern society vs. indigenous life
- Have humans evolved too fast for the modern world? (Cris predicts our WALL-E slug future)
- The indestructible nature of 1970s school uniform tights
- Why you shouldn't go hiking in formal leather school shoes
- The brilliant, almost entirely improvised performances from the young cast
- Comparisons to last week's film (Sovereign) on the topic of rejecting modern society
Verdict: Strong recommend across the board. A weird, beautiful, and thought-provoking classic.
Films/shows mentioned: Walkabout (1971), Sovereign (2025), A Far Off Place (1993), Don't Look Now (1973), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), WALL-E (2008), Crocodile Dundee (1986).
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We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
 
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Bad Dads

This week, the Dads pull out the red string and the newspaper clippings to review The Conspiracy (2012), a Canadian found-footage indie thriller written and directed by Christopher MacBride.
With Pete away skiing (and tracking his WOD PRs), Sidey, Dan, Reegs, and Cris dive into a mockumentary that blurs the lines between actual historical psy-ops and deep web paranoia.
In this episode: - Arsenal injury conspiracies and the truth about international breaks - Terrence, the ultimate tinfoil-hat kook, and his magnificent "murder wall" of newspaper clippings - The psychology of conspiracy theories: why believing a shadowy cabal controls the world is more comforting than accepting chaos - How the film effectively weaves real-world events (9/11, Gulf of Tonkin) into its fictional narrative - The dreaded Tarsus Club and the logistics of crashing an elite secret society dinner (surely they counted the masks?) - The inevitable pivot into Blair Witch meets Eyes Wide Shut in the third act - Tie-clip cameras, blurry faces, and aggressive stabbing sound effects - That deeply unsettling final interview scene
Verdict: Strong recommend. A tight, breezy indie thriller that executes its premise well, even if the final act goes a bit off the rails.
Films/shows mentioned: The Conspiracy (2012), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
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Bad Dads

It's conspiracies week at Bad Dads. All four dads — Sidey, Dan, Reegs and Cris — count down the Top Five Conspiracies before getting to Sovereign (2025), a devastating drama about a father and son in the Sovereign Citizen movement that made $63,000 at the box office and absolutely deserved better.
In the Top Five:
JFK — Oliver Stone's four-hour masterpiece of the grassy knoll, covered in full
All the President's Men — Woodward, Bernstein, the paper that's now owned by Bezos
Michael Clayton — Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson going off his meds
V for Vendetta — the graphic novel Alan Moore hated adapted by people he also hated
The Matrix/Moon Landing — Kubrick and the simulation, one or two topics
Zoolander — the fashion industry behind every political assassination for 200 years
Bubba Ho-Tep — Elvis, Black JFK, Egyptian mummy. Cris's nom. Correct.
Elvis vs Nixon — the real meeting, the badges, the conspiracy of what they said to each other
COINTELPRO — the real FBI programme that makes the conspiracy theories look tame
Sidey's friend's COVID/QAnon texts — read in full, genuinely extraordinary
Reegs' Conspiracy Quiz:
Real or made up? Finland, Denver Airport, Victorian tax avoidance, Tuskegee, government surveillance birds, and Wetherspoons underground tunnels.
On Sovereign:
Nick Offerman in an unexpected dramatic turn — really big and violent
Jacob Tremblay as Joe, the son, in what both Reegs and Dan consider career-best work
The Sovereign Citizen movement explained, and the real incident it's based on
Dennis Quaid as the sheriff whose son is killed
Martha Plimpton's brief appearance as a seminar devotee
Why Joe shoots the police: not madness, but inevitability
The baby at the end. You'll understand when you get there.
Verdict: Strong recommend all round. Heavy. Almost nobody saw it. One of those films.
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We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
 
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Bad Dads

This week Dan and Reegs review I, Swear — the 2025 BAFTA-winning film about John Davidson, the Scotsman with Tourette's syndrome who became an MBE, an advocate, and one of the most compelling biographical subjects in recent cinema.
It's just the two of them this episode. There was also a hornet.
In this episode:
The BAFTA ceremony controversy — what actually happened, why the internet got it wrong, and why the BBC's edit decision was indefensible
John Davidson's story from 1983 Galashiels to an MBE at the Palace, in a film that is simultaneously hilarious and devastating
Scott Ellis Watson's extraordinary debut performance as young John
Why this film works when so many "inspirational" biopics don't
Tommy — the elderly caretaker who becomes the father figure John never had
Dottie — the woman who simply decided to accept him, no apologies required
The drug mule scene ("half price heroin for sale")
The library scene — why a man walking quietly through a library might be the best cinematic climax of the year
The median nerve stimulation device and what it means for people living with Tourette's
The real John Davidson footage over the credits — including his dog, who may be the most emotionally intelligent character in the whole film
Verdict: Strong recommend. Both dads in tears. Multiple times. Not ashamed.
Notes: Adult language throughout. This is a film about Tourette's. That should tell you everything you need to know going in.
Films/shows mentioned: I, Swear (2025), Sinners (2025 — Michael B. Jordan's Oscar win referenced)
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We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at [email protected] or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
 
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Bad Dads